Speechless- A Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi Review.

My Personal Summary: Zélie is a girl who grew up on pain; watching her mother die and her people suffer. A chance meeting in the market begins a series of events that could change the whole of Orisha. But change doesn’t come for free and if you want freedom you have to be willing to pay the price.

Review

I’ve been interested in this book for awhile now and have, for the longest time, been putting it off, but I’ve finally read it. This book is not for the faint of heart. If you want something light and fluffy look elsewhere. Tomi Adeyemi had an idea when she wrote this novel and she definitely succeeded. While this is a fantasy book if you at all keep up with current events you’ll see very quickly that there is social relevance written all over the pages. This book will hit you where it hurts and make you think. Let’s start with the characters.

The characters were amazing! Zélie isn’t perfect, but she’s strong and she has so much history and pain. She’s driven and she’s rash and she’s pushing for change. Then Amari, she experiences so much growth throughout the book. Inan, breaks my heart yet I want to throttle him too. If you want to read a cast of complex, believable characters then this is a great book for you.

The world building was phenomenal as well. This story is loosely based in Africa, based on Adeyemi’s background I’m going to guess West Africa. The world has a history, a religion, and all the little details that really make a fantasy world spring to life for me. I really loved reading it.

Diversity. This book was based in a fantasy Africa and with that the whole cast of this book are people of color which is awesome. This book also had kickass women which I obviously very much enjoyed. Racial diversity was fantastic.

Overall, it was a game-changing book that I would highly recommend. As I mentioned before it’s not a light and fluffy read, but it’s a powerful read. I highly recommend you check it out here.